Redhanded

by Michael Cadnum

  “You do this every morning?” Mom was asking.

  I was busy using my mental antennas, sensing how things were between them. Surely she wasn’t leaving right now.

  Her question sounded simple, but I answered warily. “Run?”

  “Run, that’s what I’m asking.”

  “Just about.”

  “Maybe you’re learning some discipline,” she said.

  Mom gives a compliment when she’s about to slam-dunk a criticism. Only a fool gets too pleased when she’s being nice.

  “It’s good someone shows some maturity around here,” she said.

  Dad studied the coffee leaking into the pot.

  “All you have to do is survive, Steven,” she said. “Just another year and a few months and you’ll be eighteen. You can come live with me then. We’ll track black bears, do a coyote count, do some rock climbing. I look forward to it.”

  Her features softened. “I need it—I want to spend more time with you.”

  She was close to tears.

  I stuffed her baggage into the cute little compact car, a Tercel, the lowest-mileage car she could find.

  She took a deep breath and let it go, not a form of respiration with her, but a form of communication.

  She said, “Think about coming down to see Gram and Daddy.”

  I told her I would think about it, finally giving her a little proto-smile, all I could manage.

  I looked away for a moment, studying a long thin crack in the parking lot, subtle earth movement happening all the time, temblors we couldn’t feel but only read about in the paper.

  She flicked her gaze upward, toward the upper floors and our apartment.

  “Some men never grow up,” she said.

  I watched her Tercel accelerate up the street, toward the overpass.

  Mr. Torrance watched his dog force out a noodle of poop. I didn’t want to go up to the apartment right then and listen to my father acting upbeat, reading lines from the Chronicle horoscope out loud, what kind of day we were going to have. Mrs. Torrance had waved her bejeweled pinkies at my mother—I don’t know if Mom had waved back.

  I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

  Mr. and Mrs. Torrance must have had many questions about my mom and dad, whether my mother was going to move back here soon, where she was going right then. Mrs. Torrance had a sweet, courteous smile, and said that it was so nice to see my mother again.

  “I bet your father is the happiest man in the world,” said Mr. Torrance.

  Mrs. Torrance knelt with a plastic bag, the task she was undertaking looking all wrong for her. She should have had a lady-in-waiting or a lab assistant to help her remove this dog stool from the pavement.

  “With that new piano,” Mr. Torrance was saying, making playing motions with one hand, the other gripping the leash, “I bet he has a ball.”

  This was the reaction my father always got—people who didn’t know him very well caring about his state of mind. I could also see the unasked questions, the conversation this elderly couple was too polite to have right in front of me, why my parents couldn’t get along.

  “I used to play drums, myself,” said Mr. Torrance, stepping hard on a half-smoked cigarette.

  I tried to imagine this crisp, white-haired man hammering out a drum solo. I could very nearly envision him being in the army, in dress uniform, maybe playing drums for a color guard.

  “I had a Ludwig drum kit, with a custom hi-hat a music shop over in Alameda ran up for me. Played jazz with a trio over in the city, in a little hole in the wall off Green Street. Never made much money at it, but we cooked.”

  I started to say that I thought he was an accountant.

  “Harry was a very good drummer,” said Mrs. Torrance with feeling.

  “Tax preparation wasn’t my whole life, Steven,” he said, laughing that juicy, smoker’s hack. But I wondered if maybe I’d hurt his feelings, acting surprised that he ever dreamed of anything but decimals and sacrifice bunts.

  He said, “Everybody’s got another side or two to their personality hidden away.”

  “It’s a disappointment,” was all Dad would say. Not I’m disappointed or I bet you’re disappointed, too.

  He was putting on a freshly laundered shirt and necktie, a dazzling blue silk, a new plan for the day already under way.

  “She’ll stop by on her way back,” I said, half question, half statement.

  He looked at himself in the mirror, his features oddly backward.

  He said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen anymore.”

  I felt that I should say something to make him feel better.

  But in the next breath he was asking me what I thought of his Robert Talbot tie, a present from a friend.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stacy Martell got out of his van in the gym parking lot. He didn’t simply step down out of the vehicle—he swung himself out, one hand on the door frame, too muscular to move like a normal person.

  He pulled out his gym bag, fussed with the van door, making sure it was locked. Raymond dug an elbow into my arm as we strolled across the parking lot, as though I would fail to see my opponent unzipping his bag, peeking inside, checking his pants pockets. Stacy was always a steady presence around the gym, signing up for cleanup duty, suggesting that we could bring our own towels to cut down on expenses.

  “Lose something?” said Raymond, the sort of question timed to annoy rather than help, and hard to respond to—it sounds friendly, but it isn’t.

  Stacy’s face folded into a smile. “Hi, you guys,” he said softly.

  Then Stacy took an extra moment and gave me a look side to side, up and down, almost the way a man will size up a woman. “I guess you’re going to teach me some moves today.”

  “I’m here to learn from a master,” I countered, just the right sauce on the words, master implying: veteran, old.

  “Oh, you’ll learn,” he said.

  I admired him, the way he respected and mocked me at the same time, guarding his composure. Even the way he betrayed his nerves, patting his pockets to make sure he had his car keys, was the right kind of double-checking. It’s the one rule in boxing you never forget: protect yourself at all times.

  He was square-headed, black-haired, sturdy, and fit. We strode along together, the three of us, and I couldn’t help thinking that with his linebacker’s neck and broad feet he would be hard to hurt. He had a six-year-old son going to Hawthorne Elementary School in Oakland, and a four-year-old girl he brought to the gym to jump rope in the shadows while he hammered the speed bag.

  Raymond held the heavy steel door for us, making a little after-you gesture.

  Stacy laughed, very quietly.

  I wanted to delay the fight indefinitely.

  The ceiling of the gym was darkness shot through with steel beams. Lamps hung straight down from the void, fluorescent racks too dazzling to look at.

  Loquesto held the ropes wide so I could step through them. He huddled with Stacy, putting both hands on the man’s shoulders, speaking directly into his face.

  Then Loquesto sauntered over to me and gave me his full-face stare. “I’ll tell you what I told him,” he said. “Keep your punches up, and fight clean. Don’t try to be a hero, if you get in trouble; we’re not here to see you get hurt. You understand?”

  He meant, Did I understand what he was saying and also what he was not saying. He added something I suspected he had not told Stacy. “You’re ready for this, Steven.”

  Del Toro was at ringside, in snakeskin cowboy boots and a western-style hat, chewing gum and giving me an upward nod as he caught my eye. He lifted his right hand and made a slow motion punch, as though to encourage me to calculate down to the millimeter where and how my own right hand would find its target.

  Mr. Monday, the referee, clapped his hands together, getting Andy, the timekeeper’s, attention, and an excited crowd gathered. No iron clanked in the weight room, and the machine-gun stacc
ato of the speed bag was silent. Everyone was here, under the brightest lights, as close as they could get to the ring.

  Raymond was attending my corner, and Mr. Monday said, “Hello, Raymond, how’s your dad?”

  Raymond had adopted an expression of artful weariness, as though nothing that happened here today would touch him. This was a lie, of course, but a boxer’s seconds, his pals and cornermen, are supposed to look like that. Mr. Monday’s pleasantry brought a different expression onto Raymond’s face, a lively, sincere friendliness.

  He said that his dad was doing great, still running goats.

  Mr. Monday shook resin from a beanbag sack of the stuff, all over canvas near Stacy’s corner, and he powder-puffed my corner, too. And then he looked around as though surprised to see everybody, and leaned against the ropes, letting his weight test the tension.

  Mr. Monday and the timekeeper often talked about politics, in a philosophical way. Andy was a senior at Hayward State University, a PE major, and brought US News & World Report along with his bag lunch. Mr. Monday’s view was generally that life was complicated, while Andy felt that repealing income tax would solve every problem.

  Now Andy was alert only to his boxing duties, testing the sports watch he wore around his neck.

  At last I took a long look at my opponent, garbed now in a gray T-shirt and baggy sweatpants, jogging in place, his face compressed by the headgear and glistening from a coat of Vaseline.

  “Go crazy,” said Raymond, slipping through the ropes and down, out of the ring.

  This was reasoned advice—Raymond had often discussed his theory that if an out-of-shape maniac fought a well-conditioned normal person, you had to give the odds to the insane combatant. The unpredictability and stamina of berserk behavior counted for a great deal, especially early in a fight, but I recognized that underneath Raymond’s encouragement was another, worried message: Unless you fight like a madman, you don’t have a chance.

  Andy’s wooden hammer sang off the bell.

  Stacy, as though in an afterthought, slipped the mouthpiece between his lips. He made a chimpanzeelike grimace.

  He waltzed across the ring, looking like someone who used to be able to ballroom dance and was testing out his footwork.

  He hit me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I tried to hit him back, and I missed.

  I had seen Stacy box often before, liking his peekaboo, step-by-step approach, the way he edged his opponent into a corner and then hurt him with left hands to the face.

  It’s even more disturbing when it’s happening to you, his predictable left fist a jack-in-the-box that scored on my mouthpiece whenever he wanted it to.

  The cartoon figures crowded around the ring howled, but I could not hear a sound. I had pictured this fight so vividly that I felt a confused boredom, the ropes whipsawing against my back as I ducked and yawed, my lower face going numb, my legs turning to water.

  Raymond was shouting something, one hand crumpling his hair, one eye squinting, afraid to look.

  It’s always a jolt—how loud a punch is, and how much air it thuds out of the lungs.

  I held on to Martell, a hand cupped around each of his shoulders, leaning into him, shoving him backward with all my weight. He took a half step back, and then shoved me all the way off, and snapped that jab after me.

  I did it again—leaned into him, slipping jabs with my head, his leather glove making a squeak off my headpiece. I stayed on him, climbing to him, and he dug me in the ribs with both gloves, waiting for Mr. Monday to yell “Break!”

  Mr. Monday barked, “Watch your heads,” as our two cushioned skulls nearly collided.

  Stacy swung at my sides, hooked into my belly, and I began retaliating, tight, self-protective little punches. A feeling of relief kept me where I was, letting Stacy punch me as hard as he could to the liver.

  His punches were loud, with a little explosion of sound coming through his lips as he fought.

  But he wasn’t hurting me.

  Not really.

  I puzzled over this joyfully as I followed him, staying right in front of him as he backed up. He was treading steadily away from me. This quickened me, and I tackled him into the ropes.

  “Get off him, Beech,” said Mr. Monday, with the quietly irritated voice of a playground supervisor. “Box,” he said. He meant: Don’t wrestle.

  But it’s one thing to be cautioned or advised by the referee, and another to be warned. This was not a warning. Mr. Monday gave me a smile when I shot a peek at him. Mr. Monday bent forward like a baseball umpire who relished his work, and gave a back and forth movement of his head—keep fighting.

  Martell adjusted his mouthpiece and stepped sideways, trying to matador me into the ropes as I charged into him. I swiveled on my toes and danced after him. He tried to keep me away with his left hand, and this was punishing for me, my jaw going numb again, my mouth filling with blood.

  I landed a left hook to the face, and he dropped his hands for an instant, his legs locked at the knees. I couldn’t believe my good luck—he was getting tired.

  He jacked punches into me as hard as he could, but he was losing strength.

  The bell clanked, Martell let his gloves drop again, and I gazed around like someone who had no idea what to do next, walk, sit, lie down. I knew what to do, where my corner was, but lack of oxygen made me feel stupid.

  I forced a nonchalant look into my features and shrugged, a bit of theater. Raymond pried my mouthpiece from between my teeth and I said, “I’m all right.”

  “Spit in the bucket,” said Raymond.

  I was telling Raymond I felt great, and he was telling me not to swallow the blood, it would make me throw up.

  “Spit!”

  I spat into the blue plastic bucket, a tiny bit of red, and smiled, like I had done Raymond a big favor. Boxing does that, makes you glad for little things.

  “You scared him,” said Raymond.

  I was about to tell Raymond that I thought I should throw more lefts, when the crowd changed, got a little quieter. The small audience parted, people with their hands in their pockets, talking over the first round, showing with little head movements how they would have slipped Martell’s left.

  A hush and a kind of social starchiness swept through the small knot of enthusiasts. Loquesto edged through the people, trying to intersect this stranger.

  Chad was making his way to the ropes, gazing up at me, taller than I remembered, athletes and their girlfriends moving to get out of his way.

  “It’s okay,” Raymond was saying to the coach, “he’s with us.”

  Loquesto joined Chad beside the ring, leaned against it, ignoring Raymond, looking at Chad as though he had seen him before, probably asking if he had signed in at the front desk.

  It was an unfriendly stare-off as Chad made a point of seeming to become aware of Loquesto, turned and looked right at him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The stare-off was brief, only a couple of seconds.

  Then Loquesto climbed into the ring, and quickly went over to where Martell was leaning against the padded rung post, and gave a slow motion study of the left jab, how the fist rotates slightly as it extends outward, showing Martell he had to angle his feet to keep his body sideways, out of my reach.

  I felt a little betrayed, Loquesto showing this experienced man how to neutralize me.

  Loquesto came over to me. “Looking good, Steven,” he said.

  “Chad’s a friend of mine,” I said.

  Loquesto lifted one of his delicately scarred eyebrows. His expression said: No distractions.

  He peeled down my lip, gave my cheek a pat.

  “Score points,” the coach said. He meant: Throw more punches. You win a boxing match by being busy and active. Scorers pay attention to smart, telling blows; being tough doesn’t always win.

  Sometimes you could catch Mr. Monday’s expression changing when he thought no one was looking. He would lean against the ropes, gazing outward, into t
he recesses of the gym, and he looked like someone enjoying a quiet day, waiting for promised tidings to arrive.

  Then he would turn back, catch your eye, and hitch his features into an expression of avuncular no-nonsense, his inner joy a mystery.

  The bell made its chime, and Martell did his tin-soldier waltz halfway across the canvas. I stayed on my toes, showing off, licking his headpiece with a couple of jabs, tempting him, and when Martell threw his right hand, his power punch, I was ready for it. I leaned to my left, like someone trying to see around a tall person, and rushed him, hanging on.

  But this time I felt Chad’s eyes on me.

  And an inner voice nagged me, urged me forward. Have to win.

  Have to.

  But Martell had a new gambit, one that killed every attempt I made. When I hammered his ribs he grappled, smothering me, hugging me, pulling me nearly off my feet. Mr. Monday called for us to break, and finally had to reach in and pry us apart.

  Several times we slow-danced like this, Martell’s face an impassive, slightly smug mask, someone who knew the winning answer. Martell the boxer was nothing like Martell the helpful dad, willing to hold the stepladder while Mr. Monday screwed in a lightbulb.

  Loquesto tells us to turn off the audience, like they aren’t there. To Loquesto the gym is always empty nobody home, just your opponent. He also cautions us never to have a casual conversation in the ring, never ask your opponent how he is, and definitely never ask anyone if they are hurt.

  But all during the second round, and into the third, I was aware of Chad, even when I wasn’t seeing him, the ringside faces a blur jerked this way and that by the body punches Martell threw, lefts and rights I tried to counter with upper-cuts.

  I felt the fight settle into a rhythm, Martell giving way, motoring backward, scoring with both hands, me bulldozing ahead, putting on a brave show, the sort of fight that could go ten rounds, no one getting hurt.

  But I was a little tired, the long muscles of my arms and legs burning, the wind gasping in and out of me. Martell was trying to hang on. Midway into the third and last round, Martell shouldered into me. Standing sideways, he was able to flail at me with his left hand and circle.